Share via

As the freezing winter descends on the northern Chinese coal-mining province
of Shanxi, some Communist Party officials have dispensed with the handshake
at meetings and taken to hugging one another warmly.

But it is not a friendly gesture — they are checking to see if the other
person is wearing a wire. A more practised clinch can establish the presence
of a hidden camera, operators say.

The officials’ paranoia is entirely justified and comes amid an unusually
frenetic spate of corruption
and sex scandals, according to one of China’s new freelance debugging
experts. It is a state of fear that has